Mountain Views News          Saturday, February 16, 2013

11

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

 Mountain Views News Saturday, February 16, 2013 

SEAN’S SHAMELESS 

REVIEWS: 

JASMINE’S CORNER

Book Reviews by Jasmine Kelsey Williams 


Review By Sean Kayden

NIGHT BEDS

Winston Yellen is a 23 y/o singer-songwriter who performs with a band 
called Night Beds. The Nashville-based indie folk band is heavily influenced 
from artists such as Jeff Buckley and Ryan Adams to My Morning 
Jacket and mid-90s’ alt-country bands like The Wallflowers and Counting 
Crows. Originally from Colorado, Yellen rented a house outside Nashville, 
formerly owned by Johnny Cash and June Carter 
Cash. There he spent ten months creating his debut 
LP, “Country Sleep.” The record is beyond Yellen’s 
sensitive years. It’s incredibly warm and passionate. 
“Country Sleep” beautifully creates a portrait 
of nostalgia that can easily tear your heart apart 
as well as it may be able to mend it. Whatever the 
case may be the listener, you’ll be swirling with 
emotions that are too powerful to dismiss. However, with its relatively short duration, Night Beds 
doesn’t grasp for you too long. With a few uninspiring tunes in the mix like the closer, “TENN” 
and the painfully dreary, isolated vocal opener, “Faithful Heights,” the record still has this uncanny 
knack for captivating you when you least expect it. 

“Ramona” is the most “upbeat” song of the bunch. It’s an ingratiating alt-country tune sans the 
twang-y vocals usually found in such songs of the genre. “22” reminds me of a Ryan Adams song 
from beginning to end. Actually at first listen, I thought it was Adams singing as a guest vocalist. It’s 
heartbreakingly beautiful and echoes with strong passion and propulsion to keep moving forward. 
While the record has many influences, that doesn’t mean it’s derivative or middling. If anything, for 
those who appreciate alt-country jams and delicate folk-rock, you should feel right at home. Yellen’s 
voice is quite exquisite and carries this languorous trait that puts you into a deeply reflective mood. 
“Wanted You In August” showcases Yellen’s falsetto. His range is not only impressive but shows 
hints of a vivid future for the young and talented vocalist. 

 “Lost Springs” is another sensitive song that exhibits the heartbreak in Yellen. This soulful 
tune repeatedly and authoritatively claims, “I don’t want feel this,” but the listener is destined to feel 
the pain, either the one of Yellen’s or their very own calamity. In the end, this is by far no perfect 
album, but it’s earnestly honest, satisfying, and tender. “Country Sleep” goes through several tonal 
shifts and with many influences brought into one full album, the results is a record that’s both 
versatile and recognizable. Nevertheless, you’ll have to be in the right mood for an album of this 
disposition. When you’re ready, it will take you away. The place of destination is solely up to you. 

Wherever that is, you’ll find what you’re looking for or maybe leave behind what you have no need 
for any longer. 

Grade: 7.6 out of 10 

Key Tracks: “Ramona”, “22”, “Cherry Blossoms”, “Lost Springs” 

THE NIGHT CIRCUS By Erin Morgenstern

 Our next selection will be the perfect choice to put you in the romantic 
mood for the Valentine’s Day weekend, one that should charm you even 
by its title and cover alone. 

 

 Erin Morgenstern’s ‘The Night Circus’ is a lovely mixture of romance, 
adventure, mystery and magic which will not only enchant readers 
but completely immerse them into the world of ‘The Night Circus’, 
which should make this particular read one that you will not want to 
put down. Morgenstern crafts wonders with her words, each character 
smoothly introduced in the early chapters, but also the events that 
follow the characters will build upon each other and how each of them 
are connected in later chapters. 

 

There are two major points that bring ‘The Night Circus’ together which 
contribute to the atmosphere to keep the reader engaged: brief interludes 
that tell the story from the perspective of the reader as if they are visiting 
the Night Circus themselves, and also that even though the events build 
throughout the story, the years in which events occur at certain times 
are inconsistent, and instead are spaced a few years apart (example: one 
event is in 1902 but the next crosses back to the late 1800s). These little 
skips in time are what help to keep the story and pacing alive; shorter 
chapters give way to longer ones, without being rushed and providing 
ample time to each character that is involved. Another fresh factor is the 
lovely vivid imagery that Erin Morgenstern uses to describe ‘The Night Circus’, and all that happen 
around it: the different cities and locations, the atmosphere of the circus itself, the detail of the 
clothing worn by the performers, even the description of the delicious circus confections. And even 
the plot of ‘The Night Circus’ is of course not just vital, but also provides the layout for the reader to 
better understand how the Night Circus works, the events that occur within and outside of it, but 
also the hint of mystery that all may not be well, and will slowly be revealed even with the allure of 
the circus’s charm and magic to hide it. 

Receiving praise from various authors and sources such as The Boston Globe, Bookreporter, People, 
The Washington Post, USA Today, and various critics, as well as a personal recommendation, ‘The 
Night Circus’ is the perfect selection for any “must-read” list, and one that you will not only not 
want to put down, but one that must be thoroughly enjoyed to the very end. 

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTTGAOdcOSIE3ksVM_JGVK684kV8l6AUixT7zd-Pr4HSPj8F8GrZw
Artist: Night Beds 

Album: Country Sleep 

Label: Dead Oceans

Release Date: February 1st, 2013

SPECIAL EVENT 
AT SIERRA MADRE 
PLAYHOUSE ON 
FEBRUARY 23

 Following the regularly scheduled 
performance of the critically 
acclaimed production of 
“Driving Miss Daisy” on Saturday, 
February 23, at 8 pm, 
there will be a discussion with 
U.S. District Judge Ralph Fertig, 
who was a Freedom Rider 
during the Civil Rights Era, 
moderated by Marianne Szegedy-
Maszak, award-winning 
journalist, author and board 
member of the Center for Public 
Integrity in Washington, 
D.C.

 “Driving Miss Daisy” is the 
Pulitzer Prize winning play 
about the developing friendship 
between an elderly Jewish 
widow in Atlanta and her African 
American chauffeur. Set 
between the years of 1948 and 
1973, the narrative occurs during 
the turbulent early years of 
the Civil Rights Era, and issues 
of race are brought front and 
center.

 Performance of “Driving Miss 
Daisy.” Written by Alfred Uhry. 
Directed by Christian Lebano. 

Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 
W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra 
Madre, CA 91024. Ample free 
parking behind theatre. Admission: 
$25. Seniors (65+) $22. 
Youth (13-21), $15. Children 12 
and under, $12. Reservations: 
(626) 355-4318. Online ticketing: 
www.sierramadreplayhouse.
org 


A Word From Health Advantage.....

HOW ARE YOU LIVING YOUR DASH?

If you saw this on a tombstone, John Doe, 1/25/1913 – 1/25/2013, what would you think? Well you 
would know that John Doe was born January 25th, 1913 and died January 25th, 2013. So he lived 
100 years.

What you don’t know is located in the dash between 1/25/1912 and 1/25/2012. What was the quality 
of his life? We can see by all measures he had quantity, 100 years.

How will your dash be in your life? When you are gone, what will they say about your dash or the 
time between when you were born and when you passed on?

There is a strong correlation between quality and quantity; the higher the quality of your dash, the 
greater the quantity of your dash in most cases.

Even if your dash was cut short by some tragic event, the quality of the dash can never be taken away.

What makes a quality dash? We can look toward the whole person paradigm which includes the 
physical, the mental, the emotional and the spiritual or to live, to learn, to love and to leave a legacy.

We live and we can improve the physical aspect through living the 100 Year Lifestyle which includes 
four main components:

1. Exercise, we have to move, stretch, strain and maintain a stable and balanced structure. 

2. Nutrition, we have to fuel this body with food that fuels, empowers and heals. 

3. Sleep, we must receive proper rest so that our body can repair and rejuvenate itself. 

4. Fully functioning nervous system that operates without interference.

We learn by being a student the rest of our lives and filling our lives with books and thoughts and 
challenging ourselves to learn.

We love through our connections with others and nurturing those relationships

We leave a legacy by being involved in meaningful work that helps others and society so that when 
we are gone our work continues.

By addressing these four areas our dash can be of high quality. We are blessed with free will and 
we can make choices when stimulated. In that space between stimulus and response is a gap and in 
that gap is where your power to choose resides. Your choice determines the quality of your life and 
therefore your dash.

Your physical being is the easiest to affect so start by living the 100 Year Lifestyle in regards to your 
physical health. Start here and your dash will have the best chance of being long and of quality.

HEALTHY LIFESTYLES

ene
HOW CAN YOGA HELP 

LIVING YOGA

 
Yoga was not designed for only practice at the studio for an hour and then no yoga until your next 
class. It is about what we do everyday. When we look back at our lives, we see what we are conditioned 
to see. When we look forward, we are looking at what we anticipate seeing. We see everything through 
the narrow viewpoint of our experience. The yoga philosophy asks us to expand that view. But in order 
to do that, we need a clear and calm mind. The great sage Patanjali said that our minds are like mirrors.

 When we look in the mirror and see a bunch of spots on the mirror, we think those spots are us. But 
if we wipe the mirror (of the mind) clear every day, then when we look, maybe we can see our true 
nature and not just through the culmination of past experience. If our house is dirty and we don’t clean 
it, it gets dirtier and dirtier. Pretty soon, there is caked on dirt everywhere and we have to move out! So 
it makes sense to clean the mind everyday. Clear thinking helps us make good decisions.

 Our physical yoga practice helps us clean the mirror and calm down. It helps us to see our own egos 
and how past experiences cloud our judgment. When we practice a pose in yoga, we must focus. First, 
we learn to focus on alignment and breath. Then we learn to shift the awareness inward. If we are 
trying too hard then we focus too much on what the body is doing. If we do not try enough, then the 
mind wanders off to what we are going to eat next or how someone else in the room is doing. So we 
use the body to help us clean, by focusing and going deeper in to the inner layers of prana, or energy.

 This is the key to taming the mind. It’s not easy. But we get there a little bit at a time. If we practice a 
little bit everyday, in-between trips to the studio, we can see a little more of our true selves all the time.

Happy Cleaning!

Namasté, René 


Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com